Take Us Back In Time Tuesday - 9/22/09

I have THE most adorable picture for you this week! I was so excited to share it with you, my dear readers. It is one of my most favorite of photos.

I went to my special photo album. I flipped through it's pages, ever so carefully. "Ah-Ha! There it is!" I shouted out loud.

I carefully removed the image from it's protective sleeve, making sure to hold only the edges, so as to avoid smudges and fingerprints.

But then I remembered this article.

So, unfortunately, this is all you're getting.......



Seriously, Walmart? WTF?!
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Take Us Back In Time Tuesday - 9/15/09

I was 20 years old when I first saw the man I wanted to make babies with. The year was 1987. I was instantly enamored with his chiseled good looks. His voice made me swoon. And when he took off his shirt to reveal that body.

shiver.

This week's Take Us Back In Time Tuesday photo is not my own. But I strongly feel it is appropriate.

Patrick Wayne Swayze
August 18, 1952 - September 14, 2009

This is the man that stole my heart during his performance in the movie Dirty Dancing. "Johnny" was THE sexiest man I had ever laid my eyes on.

I fell even harder when he took up pottery in 1990's Ghost. I cry every time I watch that movie.

Patrick Swayze was my heartthrob and yesterday, he was taken away. My prayers are with his wife and family.

"The love inside, you take it with you"

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Take Us Back In Time Tuesday - 9/8/09

Today I'm going to take you back one year. As most moms do, I take pictures of my children on their first day of school.

Now mind you, they usually aren't the best shots. It's hard to stand still and smile when you are a bundle of happy, excited, anxious nerves.

I know, as I grab my camera, that I'll only be able to fire off two clicks. For each of them. If I'm lucky.

So, here is W., T., and R. (in that order) on the first day of 5th grade, Kindergarten, and Preschool, respectively, for the 2008-2009 school year.



After they all left for school, I made a huge mistake. I uploaded their new photos into my computer and compared them to the above photos.

WHERE.THE.HELL.DID.MY.BABIES.GO?!!!!

I wanted to cry. Alright, so maybe I did...just a little. So WHAT?!!! You got a problem with that?!

Ahem.

But would you look at him?! He's gone from a cute little boy to more of a...a....young MAN!! *sniff.

And he's gotten so much taller. *sniff. sniff.

AND OH NO!!! My baby girl isn't so much a baby anymore. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!


I can't believe what 365 days will do. Instead of Taking You Back In Time, I wish I could just pause it for a while.

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Take Us Back In Time Tuesday - 9/1/09

This week's Take Us Back In Time Tuesday post is not one photo, but a series of photos. This montage will reveal the type of child my baby brother was. It also explains a LOT about the man he has become.

The photo below was taken on Easter of 1980. Please note the identical dresses my sister, K. (on the left) and I are wearing. We are only eleven months apart, my mother dressed us as though we were twins. My sister always got pink. I always got blue. I guess I was too much of a tomboy to wear pink.

When I first looked at this photo, I wondered how long my parents made us squint in the sun. How many shots did it take to get this one image?


Look at the poor boy's expression! The glare is so bright he can't even keep his eyes open!


In the same album, I came across another photo. Once again, my siblings and I are outside posing, this time for my sister's 8th grade graduation. The sun seems to be behind the clouds. I consider this a good thing. I think if the sun HAD been out that day, those flowers on my sister's slipcover comforter dress would have bloomed right off of her.

So, an overcast day and YET? Still THAT face. You can almost hear him saying, "Cheeeeeese!"

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Take Us Back In Time Tuesday - 8/11/09

The year was 1989. The sleeping beauty? Mr. Schmitty. We were both 22 and best friends.

ONLY.

I remember this weekend, clearly. I am quite surprised I can recall it so well. There was mucho alcohol consumed, which I'm sure, accounted for a major loss of brain cells.

You probably are thinking this is just a picture of a sleeping man. Au contraire! You see, the story behind this photo is what you DON'T see. It is what is beyond the borders. It's also what the slumbering Mr. Schmitty has yet to experience.

I was house sitting for my friend. N.'s family lived in another state and she would periodically ask me to stay at her house and take care of her dog. Seriously, what 22 year old wouldn't?

And because we were friends, she knew that I'd have parties. Hell, she encouraged them! So, this particular night, Mr. Schmitty and I had gone to a wedding together. Like I said, as FRIENDS ONLY. When we came back to N.'s house, there was a mob waiting for us on the front porch.

We partied well into the morning hours. If I were able to enlarge the photo, you'd see the remnants of bottles and cans, as well as pizza boxes and chip bags. The place was a mess! Thank goodness N. wasn't much of a housekeeper back then.

While most of the party goers passed out fell down asleep in the living room, Mr. Schmitty retreated to a bed, like a normal person. I told you he was a dork.

Now, this is where the real fun begins. He heard the door to the bedroom open. He looked up to see a very drunk friend of ours. As said friend staggered in, he muttered something about the bathroom. Before Mr. Schmitty could tell him that it was the next room over....can you guess what happened?

Uh-huh.

The drunken fool began to pee all over the comforter. Thankfully for my future husband he was on the other side of the bed and was able to stay dry.

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Take Us Back In Time Tuesday - 8/4/09

This is the house I grew up in. It is a duplex, one of the few, in a town consisting of mostly the rich and privileged. We lived on the side with the yellow Chevette in the driveway.

When I was searching through my photos for this weeks post, I couldn't decide which smiling face or happy memory to write about.

I flipped a page in my album and wondered what I was searching for. Suddenly, this photo jumped out at me. But not in a good way. It caused a knot in my chest. I felt somewhat short of breath. It was an unexpected reaction but so strong that I kept looking.

It was as though the photo was calling out to me. It was an eerie feeling. It felt dark.

Most of you might look at this house and say, "Oh, how nice, Mrs. Schmitty's childhood home." Please do not call it a home. It was not.

What I see in my mind, when I look at this house, is a childhood of sadness, of violence, of abuse. I see a mother and three children who walked on eggshells around an unpredictable man.

I look at those shaded windows on the second floor and my throat tightens. That's how we lived. Closed up from the outside so our pain was never seen by the world. No one ever came in. And when we wandered out, those shades were drawn in our souls. For me, it took a long time for anyone to be let in there.

As I look around me now, I am just realizing; the first thing I do every morning is to pull up the shades, tie back the curtains, and open the front door. I let the sun and the outside spill in to brighten my home.

Because yes, this is my home.

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Take Us Back In Time Tuesday - 7/28/09

I love looking back through old photos. Anyone and everyone's photos. What I love even more is hearing the stories that accompany them. Every photo has a memory. Every photo invokes an emotion or feeling.

I decided to begin a weekly post entitled, "Take Us Back In Time Tuesday". Each week I will include a photo from my past and tell you, my readers, the story behind it. I would love to hear your tales, as well. So, if you would like to, please read this to find out how to participate.

Now, without further ado, my first "Take Us Back In Time Tuesday" post:

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Last week my boys were attending their summer religious classes. Each had to bring in a photo of their Baptism. I smiled as I pulled T.'s photo from it's album. There were happy faces on all; a typical, joyous celebration.

I then found W.'s photo.


Though the faces are smiling, there is nothing festive about the occasion. My face is still blotchy and red from the tears that had been wiped away, only moments before the camera flashed. My son was less than 24 hours old. We had just been told, during his 23rd hour, that he was sick. He needed to be taken, to the next state, to have open heart surgery. We were told that it might be a good idea to have our priest come to perform his Baptism. You know, "just in case".

Mr. Schmitty's brother and sister were to be W.'s Godparents. We assumed they were over an hour away at work and at home, respectively. There was no way they would be able to arrive in time; the ambulance was preparing for our departure. We did not know, that they were indeed, close to the hospital. Even under the stress of the situation, I was blamed, by a few, for not knowing that.

Our minds were a rush of, "What do we do?"

Always thinking as one, we knew who we needed to contact. We called our best friends, who were at our sides within minutes. They were there for us in all the ways that we needed them to be. No words were spoken. No questions asked.

No greater people to be our son's Godparents.

As Father Pat blessed our son, we looked on with a mixture of emotions: happiness at the birth of our son, fear of what might happen, anger at why he would need to suffer, and gratefulness to those around us for being our strength to lean on.

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